Crazy Love
by Anera527
Summary: They are a strange couple, but they would have it no other way.


"_**Crazy Love"**_

Every day, he's thankful for her. He's not sure when he realized he loved her, but it certainly wasn't long after she first appeared. Neither of them quite understood it, how she managed to get here, but they've come to accept that she simply _is_ and leave it at that. He certainly isn't going to complain. There is no one else that he feels quite at peace with, and he knows it's simply because she understands. He knew, somehow, from the very beginning, that she is different.

Like he is different.

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Every day, she's thankful for him. Perhaps back home it would have been strange that she loves someone such as him, but here… well, here there are stranger loves. She doesn't care much about back home, anyway. She didn't belong there ever since her father was killed. There are a few she misses, and she misses the castle with its secrets and ghosts that kept her company. But she's found there are quite enough ghosts to deal with here, even if they're merely memories. Dealing with his private pains has also allowed her to deal with her own, and they have worked to heal one another. She has found that he is different.

Like she is different.

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Those here who see them shake their heads. 'He's found a companion just as cracked as he is,' they mutter amongst themselves. His relationship with her has certainly caused a storm of gossip, but none truly hate her. She ignores it anyway, whenever they talk like that, and goes on reading or accompanying him to the study where they read a book together. He is fascinated by her ability to perform magic, so different from Gandalf's but just as wondrous. She entertains him for sometimes hours on end, performing spells and telling him stories about her world; about magic being hidden from "Muggle" eyes, and of the castle Hogwarts, and of the famous Harry Potter and the Dark Lord who was hunting him down. She tells him of the Final Battle at the castle, of the blood and death, and her voice falters. He takes her hand and she smiles at him and continues on.

She has been wounded, and in ways no one could quite understand.

Until she met _him_.

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She sees them gossip about him behind their hands, and about herself, but she can't help but admire the way he holds his head up throughout it all, unwilling to be beaten down or scared off by opinions or lies. He never had before, so why start now? He instead pays attention to the books in the study and her stories, and in return he tells her about his own past. She is swept up in his tales of far-off lands, even if his part in them is rather Dark, about a place called Rivendell and beyond, and a Quest to destroy a Dark Lord's Ring of Power. He is renowned throughout the lands for his part in it.

But he was wounded, and in ways no one could quite understand.

Until he met _her_.

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He had been afraid of letting her get too close in the beginning. He was not worthy to be loved, not after he had failed so thoroughly in the Quest. He had distracted himself from thoughts of romance by reminded himself that he really had nothing to give her. He had the smial, yes, and he was still quite wealthy, but what did those things have to do with love? He had only inanimate objects to give her as gifts, and for love, but he had felt that he had nothing to give her _physically_ or _emotionally_. But she taught him differently in time, simply by showing him that she didn't care about his torn soul or the memories of a Ring, or of his thoughts of blame. She loved _him_, broken as he was, and he grew to realize that that extended to the physical and emotional side of love as well.

And he found he isn't as broken as he'd thought.

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She had rarely let anyone become as close to her as he did. She had loved her father as much if in a different way, but now her father was gone, and before she came here she had been afraid of letting anyone else into her life, afraid she would lose them like she had lost everyone else. But then she met him, and she found that he was an orphan, too, and just as afraid of loving someone. But she could understand him, and she gave him that. She had nothing else to give him but her acceptance and her love, and praise Merlin he received them. She watched him heal, watched the Darkness leave his being, saw his soul knit itself back together.

And she found she is not as broken as she had been.

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He loves listening to her nonsense. When something happens that is out of the ordinary, she smiles and says, "Nargles again!" He merely laughs, still wondering what "Nargles" look like, but completely comfortable with what others called her oddities. She gives him a sense of normalcy in his life, something he knows that will always be constant and there. Strange, that a young woman such as she could give him so much, and still be so unmarred by Darkness, but he decides that that is how he likes it.

She isn't innocent, but she _is_ pure.

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She loves watching him work on his writing. He has such a firm hand, even if his finger is missing, with bold, beautiful script. His uncle's handwriting reminds her of Professor Dumbledore's. He laughed when she told him that, but she knew it wasn't out of spite or simply being polite. He would never laugh out of spite. He knows how it feels to be laughed at. He gives her a sense of reassurance, because seeing him, she knows that he knows all too well what it means to be looked down upon or even shunned because of his out-of-order habits in his society. But she reads his story, and hears his accounts of what happened to him, and she realizes that he truly is extraordinary. There was a saying that she'd heard once, maybe spoken by Hermione Granger that said that something about only the purest souls could be doused in the flames of Hell itself and come out stronger and purer than before. And the proof sits before her, writing of the Darkness that tore at him, and ignorant of the soft light he seems to glow with sometimes.

He isn't innocent, but he _is_ pure.

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They are a strange couple, the witch and the hobbit, one with blonde hair and silver eyes, and the other with dark hair and blue eyes, but they have the same ethereal qualities and even the same far-off expressions. But they have found healing and love with each other, and have found they almost forget the pain of the past together.

They are a strange couple, but they would have it no other way.


End file.
